upright and clean....' Oh, but I needn't read
that, Uncle Bob." She turned over a page or so. "I think that's all.
No, just this:

"'I've been made mess secretary, and I serve out coffee in the canteen
for a couple of hours every other day. That's about all there is to do. I
wish to Heaven I had an ordinary commission!"

The girl's voice ceased with a suspicious suddenness, and the man's
hand tightened on her arm. For a minute they remained so, and then,
impulsively and unrestrained, she half-turned and sobbed out against his
knees:

"Oh, Uncle Bob, I'm so unhappy! I feel so sorry for him. And--and--the
worst is, I don't really understand.... I don't see what worries him. Our
religion is good enough, I'm sure. Oh, I _hate_ those beasts of men out
there! Peter's too good for them. I wish he'd never gone. I feel as if
he'd never come back!"

"There, there, my dear," said the old soldier, uncomfortably. "Don't take
on so. He'll find his feet, you know. It's not so bad as that. You can
trust him, can't you?"

She nodded vigorously. "But what do _you_ think of it all?" she demanded.

Sir Robert Doyle cleared his throat. "Well," he began, but stopped. To
him it was an extraordinarily hard thing to speak of religion, partly
because he cherished so whole-heartedly what he had got, and partly
because he had never formulated it, probably for that very reason. Sir
Robert could hardly have told his Maker what he believed about Him. When
he said the Creed he always said it with lowered voice and bowed head, as
one who considered very deeply of the matter, but in fact he practically
never considered at all....

"Well," he began again, "you see, dear, it's a strange time out there,
and it is a damned unpleasant age, if you'll excuse me. People can't take
anything these days without asking an infernal number of questions. Some
blessed Socialist'll begin to ask why a man should love his mother next,
and, not getting a scientific answer, argue that one shouldn't. As for
the men, they're all right, or they used to be. 'Love the Brotherhood.
Fear God. Honour the King'--that's about enough for you and me, I take
it, and Graham'll find it's enough for him. And he'll play the game, and
decent men will like him and get--er--helped, my dear. That's all there
is to it. But it's a pity," added the old Victorian Regular, "that these
blessed labour corps, and rest camps, and all the rest of it, don't have
parade services. The boy's bound t